According to the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, Claudia Wilken was born in Minneapolis (on you Fighting Gophers!) in 1949, earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford (Live Tree or Die!) in 1971 and earned her law degree at Cal-Berkeley (This is Bear Territory!) in 1975.

Wilken is chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Northern California, and she is based in Oakland. She has, since June 27, been deliberating her decision on Ed O’Bannon vs. NCAA, a case that has the power to transform major-college football and men’s basketball. She is expected to deliver her decision this week.

***

>> Seriously? You're following all those Twitter accounts but not @buckeyextra? Go ahead and move to Michigan while you're at it.

***

Wilken, despite her Big Ten and Pac-12 pedigrees, appears to have had little idea of the way major-college sports operate. That is one interesting tidbit I gleaned while reading though transcripts and summaries of the trial. At one point, Wilken asked a witness to explain what the Football Bowl Subdivisionis, and then the Bowl Championship Series. When the witness offered that there also was something new called CFP (the College Football Playoff), Wilken threw her hands in the air.

She might not know how to pronounce Krzyzewski, and she might have been surprised to find out that the Duke men’s basketball coach has a salary of more than $9 million — but she is no fool. In the copious reporting done during the trial, she comes off as cagey and deft, playing dumb one minute and devil’s advocate the next. There was no doubt about who is running her courtroom.

College athletes are prohibited by NCAA rules from receiving any compensation beyond their scholarship. O’Bannon said that this setup is a violation of U.S. antitrust laws. O’Bannon seeks an injunction that would allow players to negotiate compensation for the use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL) in commercial products.

Which players? O’Bannon covers only Bowl Subdivision football players and Division I men’s basketball players. What commercial products? O’Bannon mentions things such as televised games, rebroadcast games, video games, licensed apparel and trading cards. O’Bannon also wants compensation allowed for endorsements, the way Olympians are allowed, but only if a school signs off on the deal.

O’Bannon supports a system in which student-athletes are represented by a trade association, rather than sports agents. The association would collect and pool earnings in a trust fund. The trust would make payments only upon completion of a player’s college career, thus limiting distractions.

The NCAA argues that removing any vestige of amateurism would devalue their products and reduce demand. The NCAA argues that any change in their system would create a competitive imbalance of rich, powerful schools and poorer, less powerful schools. The NCAA argues that to allow any compensation would be to denigrate a student-athlete’s educational experience and separate him from the academic life of a university.

Hypocrisy was among the highlights of the trial.

There is nothing amateur about a business that draws billions of dollars from television contracts. There is nothing to fear of competitive imbalance because it already exists. To claim that student-athletes are not athlete-students is to say that the Alabama physics majors have the same dorm accommodations as the offensive linemen. And if you think that big-time college football and basketball players are drawn to schools primarily for academic reasons, well, bless your heart.

The case is not a slam dunk for the plaintiffs, however. This is an antitrust case, and those can be tricky. O’Bannon has to prove that the restrictions on players have somehow harmed a certain marketplace, and that can be difficult.

Wilken might rule for one side or the other or she might split the difference. Some legal analysts believe she might allow players “NIL” rights on video games, apparel and other such products — but not for televised games or rebroadcasts.

Whatever her ruling, one side or the other is going to push the case up to the appeals level — and after that, it will go all the way to the Supreme Court. The process will take years.